


On This Day

by RiddleRedCoats



Series: Bellamort One-Shots [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bellatrix loves her family, F/M, Regulus' death, She's still fucked up tho, Sirius' death, The only real characters are Bellatrix and Voldemort, Voldemort /cares/ about her and is fucked up too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 16:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18102485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiddleRedCoats/pseuds/RiddleRedCoats
Summary: A generally awful day. A conversation long-due. A sleepless night. And an introspection to the lives of Bellatrix and Voldemort during a sleepless night.Or, you know, a angst-ier version of ‘Night’s Long Journey Into Day’ with some Black-Family angst thrown in for thefunof it.





	On This Day

**Author's Note:**

> As the summary says this an angstier version of my previous little fanfic. This idea wouldn't leave my mind after/during writing the other one. So if you find some similar sentences then yes, it is sorta intentional.

**November 2 nd, 1996**

**23:30 PM**

Bellatrix woke up with start, her breath coming out in short bursts, her eyes wide with fear and wet with tears. She takes in steading breaths and raises her hand to her fast beating heart. Once she is sure her breath is under control, she rises from her bed, sure that she will never be able to go back to sleep.

Raising her hand to tame her wild, wavy, black hair back into something resembling sane she ends up tying it up in a more-or-less messy bun atop her head. She put on her usual dress – corset, armour, wand and all – the fear of being caught unawares and of being dragged to that **_hellhole_** again making her imagination run wild with fear…

Contrary to popular belief, she remembered every single day she spent Azkaban. People think that the days melt into each other and you spend your sentence in a constant state of inert ignorance and bad memories. If only.

She had figured out the pattern early in her stay of her cell.

During the first five years it had been much the same: day one, the predictable memory of her parents’ death at the hand of Alastair Moody; day two, Sirius’ first appearance at a battle and the certainty they would be on different sides of this bloody war; day three, the death of her favourite cousin Evan Rosier; day four, hearing of Regulus’ death; day five, finding out Andromeda had sneaked out of her window to be with that mudblood trash she eventually married; day six, her little sister’s tears and hysterics when her firstborn daughter had been a stillborn; and finally, day seven, the moment – the very **_second_** – she had found out that her Lord, her mentor, her lover had been destroyed – lost – to an infant boy. And then after an interminable week of increasingly worse horrors, the cycle would repeat itself. Again. And again. And **_again_**. 

Then, after the fifth year, her mind – and what was left of her heart – already more-or-less emotionless to the memories, the Dementors found a way to make it worse…

Instead of a day’s long repeat of the same memory, the Dementors had played the build up to each memory, playing a week before each disaster, making Bellatrix review every choice she had ever made that led to her worst memories. The missed dinner with her parents because of a stupid argument; the way she had needled Sirius into joining the Order; the jet of red light of a **Diffendo** she had dodged and it had been a direct hit to Evan’s throat; how she had thrust Regulus into the Death Eater life and left him to his own devices; the way she had ignored Andromeda’s affair with Tonks, hoping it would go away; the way she had stressed Narcissa with rants of Death Eater business, Andromeda and Sirius making her wonder if she had anything to do with her little niece’s death; then, of course, how she had withdrawn from the Dark Lord after the death of Regulus, after the death of Evan, after the Dark Lord became obsessed with a **_prophecy_** of all things and how that been surely the reason why he hadn’t taken her with him or gave her the mission altogether… 

Then, after Year Ten, after long exposure to the Dementors’ week-long delves into her mind, came the horrible _what-if_ scenarios she subconsciously had thought of after 5 long years of exposure to all her mistakes…

What if she had been to the dinner with her parents – all of them dead. Her own death. Moody putting her in that cell earlier. Moody find a way to catch a ride on her portkey and finding the Dark Lord’s hideout.

What if Sirius had never joined the Order – James Potter defiant at his best friend's betrayal killing him in cold blood.  Dumbledore trying to destroy the House of Black by slandering Sirius name and giving him the Dementors kiss.

What if, she hadn’t dodged the spell meant for her – it meant her own death. Or if Regulus or Lucius had been behind her – her baby cousin dead, her baby sister never talking to her again. Evan on the cell beside her – a fate worse than death.

What if she had protected Regulus better – her baby cousin would certainly be in the cell beside her or rotting somewhere in the family cemetery, anyways.

What if Andromeda had never run away – her little sister married to Thanatos Yaxley, a not so nice man to his **_wives_**. Her sister, who had said she would surely **_die_** if she spent another day in their house, found dead in the morning because she couldn’t handle it anymore.

What if her little niece – Cassiopeia – had been born and lived – Narcissa pushing Bellatrix out of her life now that she had a child. Lucius defecting because Narcissa couldn’t deal with her little girl growing up in such an environment, and then the Dark Lord tasking with having her kill them **_– her baby sister, her little niece_** – because of it.

And, of course, what if she had been with the Dark Lord when he had gone to the Potters – not being able to protect him…Watching his body fall, disintegrate into thin air, disappear before her very eyes. And even if they had succeeded there had been the matter of the Longbottom’s and the seemingly inevitable fall of the Dark Lord.

If anything the _What-Ifs_ had been worse than even the original memories.

She leaves her reverie and decides that she can’t take another moment of her empty room any longer. A walk in the gardens, or in the forest near the mansion might calm her. She leaves her room in the disarray of her awakening and then, as she descends the staircase, her boots echoing in the enormous hall of the mansion, a cough interrupts her increasingly despondent thoughts.

She turns towards the sound and isn’t exactly surprised to find the Dark Lord leaning against the door of his office. She **_is_** surprised that he is asking for her, ever since the Department of Mysteries things had been… tense, if one liked to understate.   

“Come.” He calls and gestures into his office.

She bit back a sigh. It wasn’t like she had much choice, either way.

* * *

 

**November 3 rd, 1996**

**00:00**

Voldemort lit the candles as Bellatrix passed the threshold into the room. He motioned for her to sit down on the couch in front of the unlit fireplace. She sat there, her back painfully straight, her legs primly bent at the knees. He repressed a shudder and a laugh, they both hated whenever she acted like a proper pureblood lady with all the rules, etiquette and decorum that took the fun out of everything. He adored her as a wild, fierce, laughing, curse-spewing warrior. Not as the figure of the broken, demure, giggling figure of a woman she was not.

But tonight he could let it go. Tonight was always a rough night for her.   

He knew why Bellatrix was awake. He knew what today meant. He knew that this day for the House of Black was as dark as their name.

On this day, 23 years ago, Andromeda had married the mudblood.

On this day, 21 years ago, Sirius had run away to the Potters.

On this day, 18 years ago, Narcissa had lost her (first) unborn child.

On this day, 16 years ago, Regulus had been initiated into the Death Eaters, which Voldemort knew Bellatrix had impenitently blamed for her cousin’s death despite her unwavering loyalty to the cause.  

On this day, 15 years ago, Bellatrix had been thrown into prison.

She was always a little angsty on this night – the whole damn day if he was being honest. Never wanting to talk, always preferring to sit in silence, drinking an entire bottle of firewhiskey and then inviting him to her bed. Although now that she had spent time in Azkaban for him – now that he was not the man she had known and she not the same woman – he wondered if she would do so again.

He could delve into her mind, but her defences ever since Azkaban had been locked up tighter than ever before, he didn’t even think that Bellatrix knew how to become defenceless again. She didn’t – **_couldn’t_** – undo her defences around him or anyone, afraid that anyone else might mess with her head.  He couldn’t delve into her mind, not without causing her immense pain and possibly breaking her mind for good. But he didn’t really **_need_** to, anyways, he had never had reason to doubt Bellatrix commitment, either to the cause or to him personally, and while it would have helped to know how to bring the old Bella back, he would not risk the progress she had already made.

He resolved that he would not speak to her tonight.

 (The punishment he had dealt for her after the disaster at the Ministry – his long absence from her presence, the perception that she had fallen out of favour when he still valued her opinion over most others – didn’t even enter his mind as he wondered how to deal with a despondent Bellatrix. He didn’t think of how not speaking would affect an already skittish, dejected, cracked Bellatrix.)

As she sat there, next to him, uncomfortable, in his presence due to his months-long absence, though he thought it was due to the awful day, shivering in the cold night air he felt a muted tug in his chest. He, accustomed to the cold, didn’t need the fireplace lit. Bellatrix’ shivering, however, might have compelled him to light the fire.

* * *

 

**November 3 rd, 1996**

**03:00 AM**

“You know, Sirius was born exactly 37 years ago? At three in the morning, that boy came screaming out his lungs and waking up the whole damn house.” Bellatrix broke the uneasy silence that had settled around them.

“Hmm…” Voldemort distractedly hummed as he petted Nagini, his attention still firmly on the book in his hand.

“Always had to be a bother to everyone, that one.”

Before – before Azkaban, prophecies and disappearances – they had spent entire nights together. Either talking all night, discussing politics, tactics, moods, books, spells, professors, experiences. Either completely quiet, each reading a book in their corner of the library, playing chess or just enjoying the quiet after a long, tiring day. Or, they had spent whole nights in bed, not getting any sleep, not really talking but not being exactly **_quiet_** either.

But now…

Not a peep from him – no word, no talk, no nothing. And the silence as they didn’t talk was loud, overwhelming… ** _Awkward_** in a way it had never been before. And Bellatrix wasn’t even going to mention how long since they had last shared a bed.

When he didn’t talk back, Bellatrix took the hint and shut her babbling. They hadn’t been talking in a long time – ever since she came back from Azkaban, or ever since **_he_** came back so different from the man he had been – Bellatrix wondered why she thought today would be different.

It was Bellatrix, who added more kindle to the fire.

* * *

 

**November 3 rd, 1996**

**04:30 AM**

They had, somehow, moved to chess.

His Queen moving. Her Pawn is taken off the board.

Her Bishop making a move towards his King. His Rook takes it.

Her Queen retreats when his Knight moves.

 _Odd._ He thought, as he always did when playing chess with Bella, although this time for a different reason. _How easily she used to sacrifice her most valuable piece._

Bellatrix was a decent chess player and her playstyle wasn’t hard to figure out. Two moves ahead, always, but she often forgot that single move that could derail her whole plot. Still, she was adaptive, and she didn’t have a go-to move when things were dire like most players did. She was often random too, making it almost impossible to predict her moves, of course, that when that happened she made lots of mistakes that were easily exploited.  

Much like she was when she planned a mission.

Reckless, bold and adaptive.

He didn’t understand this Bella. So indecisive, so unimaginative, so… broken. _No, not broken._ He thought, there was still fire in her grey eyes. _Cracked, scarred, different…But not broken._

“Checkmate.” He says.

Bellatrix nods, unbothered by the loss. 

Voldemort has to contain himself to not say anything. She hated losing almost as much as he did. Her apathy was setting him on edge. But confrontation isn’t what she needs right now. But this… **_wallowing_** would have to stop, eventually.

He resets the board.

A new game is played.

He ignores the thankful look each time he lets of her apathic moods pass without comment. He ignores the grateful eyes, the small smile, and tired-looking dark-circles under her eyes. And still, the bright light of the orange fire illuminated the room, burning away in the night. The crackling of the burning wood, and the pieces moving across the board the only sounds in the room.

* * *

 

**November 3 rd, 1996**

**06:30 AM**

“You and I killed the House of Black.”

They had stopped playing the game about half-an-hour ago and were now just sitting next to each other on the couch.  

It was nearly morning, Voldemort could see the peaks of light finally coming through the window.

“Yes.” Voldemort answers the accusation because it had been just that, “We did.”

Bellatrix is quiet. It must be devastating to hear such a thing, for she had always been such a proud daughter of her House. Now, what he needed to make her see, was that it had been necessary and that she was more than her lineage.

“Or you could look at it this way. We killed those who dared oppose us.”

“Regulus was a child.” Bellatrix shook her head.

“He snooped around where he shouldn’t.”

He knew then he had said too much.

“What are you-…” Bellatrix stops and tries to remember back to the time of her youngest cousin’s death. She remembers how Regulus had been incensed about something, she remembers how her Lord had questions about that one little cup he had her keep in her vault not long after Regulus’ death, “The Horcruxes.” Bellatrix says, sure of herself in a way she hadn’t been since Azkaban, “He found out.”

It wasn’t a question, but his silence is confirmation enough for her.

“Is that why you killed him?”

More dangerous than Bellatrix screaming atop her lungs in a temper tantrum, was a softly spoken question. He had learnt that the hard way two decades or so back.

“You knew I had killed him.” Voldemort whispers. Truly unsure for the first time of how Bellatrix would react.

They had never had the time to have this conversation. Regulus’ death had been too close to his fall on that October night in 1981. And in that other time, that other decade, she might have understood, might have agreed with him. Might have even supported him. But now… Now, he sees the cracks in all his soldiers’ loyalty, he sees the doubt, the distrust… They follow him through fear, not common goals, as they had once.

And Bellatrix had always been essential to his followers, her unwavering support as a brilliant daughter of the House of Black was invaluable and irreplaceable. Their relationship was an added bonus he had never counted on. She was invaluable to him too – not irreplaceable, certainly – but invaluable nonetheless. If he lost her now…

“You said-…” Her grey eyes, characteristic of all Blacks – of Sirius, Regulus and Andromeda -, flash with untold fury, “You said you killed him because he was a traitor.”

“He was.”

“To **_you_**! Not the cause. He didn’t need to die for that!” An aura of magic rises within and around Bellatrix, making the air stale, hard to breathe and her hair sway with unfelt wind, “This whole war is not just about **_you_**. No matter how much you like to pretend otherwise, ** _Tom_**.”

Any other person and they would be dead. No doubt about it. But, she had her privileges for many reasons: her status, her brilliance, her talent, their relationship… but most importantly because, more often than not, her arguments had more merit than he would like to admit. Bellatrix had always had a temper, and her defiance had helped him more times than he could count. He could let this little insolent argument slide, today of all days.

“Bella…” he reaches towards her. His touch had always intoxicated her, had always pleased her. Had always calmed her volatile temper.

This time, he doesn’t get very close.

“Stop!” Bellatrix yells at him.

In the bookcase behind them, a small glass statuette shatters with her fury.

It’s Bellatrix herself that flinches at the noise, and recoils within herself, her stupor broken by the shattering glass.

She stood there, trembling, as if unsure of how they had reached this point.

He touches her then, the first time since the whole mess at the Ministry. It had the desired effect, she practically melted in place, calmed by his simple touch in the way she always was when they reunited after spending any time apart.

“He was…” Voldemort took a calming breath, it would not do for him to lose his temper as well. Still, his tone broke no question, “He was untrustworthy, and he knew many of our tactics. I could not let him go that easily, Bella.”

She nods, though he can see a flicker of doubt in her eyes. Still, the tone he had used she would not dare to question, there were lines even she would not dare cross.

Bellatrix, calmly leaned away from his touch, her need for space clear on her face. She sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, her eyes never leaving the dying embers. She draws her knees to her chest finding comfort in herself, as she had done for the 14 interminable years of that cold, dark prison that had poisoned her mind.

Voldemort sat back on the couch and stared at her. There wasn’t much he could do now; her mind was lost to the cold reassess of her memory.

Neither moved to add anymore kindle to the fire.

* * *

 

**November 3 rd, 1996**

**08:00 AM**

There was a meeting in half-an-hour.

Voldemort rose from his seat, getting ready to call upon his Death Eaters.

The fire had long gone out, with no one to foster its warmth and its light.

Bellatrix was still sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, still with her knees drawn to her chest, still staring blankly at the where the fire had been. As Voldemort passed behind her to reach the door and leave the room, he laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. Before leaving the room altogether, the high voice of the Dark Lord filled the room one last time.

“Happy Birthday, Bella.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I made myself sad with this one :( . I always imagined that – ironically – Bellatrix and Sirius were the most similar of the cousins, that they had the same wand core, the same tastes and even the same birthday. And yes, they’re both Scorpios, like have you met a Scorpio (or even read a description of one) if that doesn’t scream Bellatrix and Sirius then I don’t know what does. (Btw, I love Scorpios, you chaos causing disasters)
> 
> About Bellatrix self-confidence… Sometimes I hate the submissive Bellatrix of both canon and some fanfic, it makes no sense. It stupid, she’s practically royalty, and she’s an intitled bitch who I love very much. She’s too badass to be that submissive to a dumbass like Voldemort. They fought all the time in private. That’s my headcanon and I’m sticking to it. And while I think her love for him compelled her to follow him, she was a believer of the cause first.
> 
> As for her knowing that Voldemort was Tom Riddle? Like really, J.K. you expect me to believe that purebloods that can recite their ancestry backward centuries aren’t aware that Voldemort is the love child of the unfortunate affair between Merope Gaunt and a muggle? Bitch, please. Bellatrix using the name is a little less believable, but you know… the drama required it.
> 
> I always wondered how Bellatrix reacted to Regulus’ death, so here?
> 
> This had more plot than I wanted to…. Ooops?


End file.
